"Good-day, Meester Foyle. Glad to see you back."
"Morning, Louis!"
This, then, was the monster himself.
"Had a nice treep, Meester Foyle? Plenty business, I hope."
"Plenty! You old lump of blubber! Don't you know by this time I can sell anything? I could sell a ton of macaroni in the streets of Aberdeen."
Bertorelli laughed and extended his hands expressively, while his chuckle wreathed more chins around his full, beaming face.
"That woulda be easy, Meester Foyle. Macaroni is good, just the same as porreedge; makes a man beeg like me."
"That's right, Louis! You're a living example against the use of macaroni. Never mind your figure, though. How's all the family?"
"Oh! Just asplendeed! The bambino weel soon be as beeg as me Already he has two chins."
As he rolled with laughter, Mary again gazed aghast at the tragic spectacle of a villain who concealed his rascality under the guise of a fictitious mirth and a false assumption of humanity. But her conflicting thoughts were interrupted by Denis, as he tactfully enquired:
"What would you like, Mary a macallum?"
She had sufficient hardihood to nod her head; for although she would not have known a macallum from a macaroon, to have confessed her ignorance before this archangel of iniquity was beyond her.
"Very good, very nice," agreed Bertorelli, as he ambled away.
"Nice chap, that," said Denis, "straight as a die; and as kind as you make them!"
"But," quavered Mary, "they say such things about him."
"Bah! He eats babies, I suppose! Pure, unlovely bigotry, Mary dear. We'll have to progress beyond that some day, if we're not to stick in the Dark Ages. Although he's Italian he's a human being. Comes from a place near Pisa, where the famous tower is, the one that leans but never falls. We'll go and see it some day we'll do Paris and Rome too," he added casually.
Mary looked reverently at this young man who called foreigners by their Christian names and who toyed with the capitals of Europe, not boastingly like poor Matt, but with a cool, calm confidence, and she reflected how pulsating life might be with a man like this, so loving and yet so strong, so gentle and yet so undaunted. She felt she was on the way to worshipping him.
Now she was eating her macallum, a delicious concoction of ice cream and raspberry juice, which, cunningly blending the subtly acid essence of the fruit with the cold mellow sweetness of the ice cream, melted upon her tongue in an exquisite and unexpected delight. Under the table Denis pressed her foot gently with his, whilst his eyes followed her naive enjoyment with a lively satisfaction.
Why, she asked herself, did she enjoy herself always so exquisitely with him ? Why did he seem, in his kindness, generosity, and tolerance, so different from any one she had known? Why should the upward curl of his mouth and the lights in his hair, the poise of his head, make her heart turn with happiness in her breast?
"Are you enjoying this?" he asked.
"It really is nice here," she conceded, with a submissive murmur.
"It's all right," he agreed. "I wouldn't have taken you, otherwise. But anywhere is nice so long as we are together. That's the secret, Mary!"
Her eyes sparkled back at him, her being absorbed the courageous vitality which he radiated, and, for the first time since their meeting, she laughed spontaneously, happily, outright.
"That's better," encouraged Denis. "I was beginning to worry about you." He leant impulsively across the table and took her thin, small fingers in his.
"You know, Mary dear, I want you so much to be happy. When I first saw you I loved you for your loveliness but it was a sad loveliness. You looked to me as if you were afraid to smile, as if some one had crushed all the laughter out of you. Ever since our wonderful time together, dear, I've been thinking of you. I love you and I hope that you love me, for I feel we are just made for each other. I couldn't live without you now and I want to be with you, to watch you unfold out of your sadness and see you laugh at any silly stupid joke I make to you. Let me pay my court to you openly."
She was silent, moved immeasurably by his words, then at last she spoke:
"How I wish we could be together," she said sadly. "I I've missed you so much, Denis. But you don't know my father. He is terrible. There is something about him you don't understand. I'm afraid of him, and he he has forbidden me to speak to you."
Denis' eyes narrowed.
"Am I not good enough for him?"
Mary gripped his fingers tightly, involuntarily, as though he had wounded her.
"Oh! Don't say that, dear Denis. You're wonderful and I love you, I'd die for you; but my father is the most domineering man you could ever imagine; oh! and the proudest man too."
"Why is he like that? He has nothing against me? I've nothing to be ashamed of, Mary. Why do you say he is proud?"
Mary did not reply for a moment. Then she said slowly, "I don't know! When I was little I never thought about it; my father was like a god to me, so big, so strong; every word that he uttered was like a command. As I grew older, I seemed to feel there was some mystery, something which makes him different from ordinary people, which makes him try to mould us into his own fashion, and now I almost fear that he thinks " She paused and looked up at Denis nervously/
"What?" he urged.
"I'm not sure, oh! I can hardly say it." She blushed uncomfortably as she haltingly continued, "He seems to think we are related in some way to the Winton family."
"To the Wintons," he exclaimed incredulously. "To the Earl himself! How on earth does he make that out?"
She shook her head sadly, miserably. "I don't know. He never lets himself speak of it, but I know it's in the back of his mind all the time. The Winton family name is Brodie, you see Oh! but it's all so ridiculous."
"Ridiculous!" he echoed. "It does seem ridiculous! What does he expect to get out of it?"
"Nothing," she exclaimed bitterly. "Only the satisfaction to his pride. He makes life miserable for us at times. He compels us, makes us live differently from other people. We're apart in that house of ours that he built himself, and like him it oppresses us all." Carried away by the expression of her fears, she cried out finally, "Oh ! Denis, I know it's not right for me to talk like this about my own father, but I'm afraid of him. He would never never allow our engagement."
Denis set his teeth. "I'll go and see him myself. I'll convince him in spite of himself and I'll make him let me see you. I'm not afraid of him. I'm not afraid of any man living."
She jumped up in a panic. "No! No, Denis! Don't do that. He would punish us both dreadfully." The vision of her father, with his fearful, brute strength, mauling the beauty of this young gladiator, terrified her. "Promise me you won't," she cried.
"But we must see each other, Mary. I can't give you up."
"We could meet sometimes," said Mary.
"That leads nowhere, dear; we must have some definite understanding. You know I want to marry you." He looked at her closely; he knew her ignorance to be such that he was afraid to say any more. Instead, he took up her hand, kissed the palm softly, and laid his cheek against it.
"Will you meet me soon?" he asked inconsequently. "I would like to be in the moonlight with you again to see it shining in your eyes, to see the moonbeams dancing in your hair." He lifted his head and looked lovingly at her hand, which he still held in his. "Your hands are like snowdrops, Mary, so soft and white and drooping. They are cool like snow itself against my hot face. I love them, and I love you."
A passionate longing seized him to have her always with him. If necessary he would fight; he would be stronger than the circumstances that separated them, stronger than fate itself; in a different voice he said firmly:
"Surely you will marry me, even if we've got to wait, won't you, Mary?"
While he sat silent against the garish background of the empty shop, his hand lightly touching hers, awaiting her answer, she saw in his eyes the leaping of his kindred soul towards her, in his question only the request that she be happy with him always, and, forgetting instantly the difficulty, danger and total impossibility of the achievement, knowing nothing of marriage but only loving him, losing her fear in his strength and sinking herself utterly in him, her eyes looked deeply into his, as she answered: